French Legislative Elections The National Alliance leads in the first round

According to the preliminary estimates of polling agencies, in the first round of voting in France's historic legislative election held on June 30, the far-right party National Alliance won the lead in the vote. It is also the first time in the history of the French Fifth Republic that far-right forces are expected to participate in taking power.

According to estimates released by Ipsos and Ifop at 8 p.m., the National Alliance led by Bardra and Marine Le Pen and its allies received 34.2-34.5% of the vote, ahead of the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (28.5-29.1%) and President Emmanuel Macron's ruling party camp (20.5-21.5%), AFP reported. The traditional right Republican Party, which did not choose to ally itself with the far right, received 10 percent of the vote.

Preliminary projections for future seats in the National Assembly suggest that the National Alliance and its allies could win a relative or even absolute majority after the second round of voting next Sunday, the report said.

After the National Alliance won the European Parliament elections, Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and the early holding of legislative elections. The political landscape in France is likely to change profoundly thereafter.

The redistribution of the 577 seats in the National Assembly will depend on the second round of voting to be held next Sunday, and the final outcome will be affected by the voter mobilization of the parties, the possibility that some parties may abandon the election in specific constituencies to avoid a certain outcome, and the fact that parties with no hope of victory call on their supporters to switch to other candidates. In particular, given the current situation, the second round of voting may be preceded by a "three-legged clique" of the far-right, the left-wing coalition and the ruling party.

In a written statement to the press at 8 p.m., Macron said: "In the face of the National Alliance, the time has come to form a broad coalition with clear democratic and republican positions in order to win the second round of voting." This is a loosening of his previous statement of "neither nor either" an alliance with the extreme right.

Macron also praised the "high level of participation" of French voters, which once again bears witness to "the importance of this election for our compatriots and their strong will to take a political position".

Before the end of voting, a large number of voters were expected to reach at least 65 percent of registered voters, the report said. According to estimates by pollsters, this figure is much higher than the 47.51 percent recorded in 2022, but lower than the 67.9 percent in the 1997 re-election after the dissolution of the National Assembly.

According to Ipsos' statistical estimate of 539 constituencies in mainland France, 65 to 85 candidates will be directly elected in the first round of voting, while 285-315 seats in the second round may be in a "three-way competition" situation, and 150-170 seats will be a "two-way showdown" situation.

The data also shows that the National Alliance candidate will compete in 390-430 constituencies, the New Popular Front candidate will compete in 370-410 constituencies, the ruling party candidate will compete in 290-330 constituencies, and the Republican candidate will only have 70 to 90 constituencies in the final battle.

It is estimated that the National Alliance received around 34% of the vote in the first round, breaking two records: its highest percentage of votes in history and the largest number of votes the party received in the national elections, which were not in the second round.

Three weeks ago, Bardera's list of candidates won 31.37 percent of the vote in the European Parliament elections, the best record in the party's history. In the new legislative elections, the far-right has improved slightly, with an increase of about 3 percentage points in the vote.

Compared to the results of the first round of voting in the last legislative elections in 2022, the performance of the National Alliance is even more remarkable: the share of the vote has doubled, and may even nearly triple. Moreover, far-right candidates were in the second round in 206 constituencies, 110 of which led in the first round. The party is set to advance to the second round in more constituencies.

In addition, the far-right broke its record for first-round votes in all elections. Previously, Marine Le Pen had won 8133828 votes in the 2022 presidential election. This time, the party received nearly 11.5 million votes, almost the same number as in the second round of the presidential election two years ago.

As a direct result of this victory, the National Alliance could receive between 9.5 million and 11 million euros of party funding from the public treasury each year, compared to 6.8 million euros in the last two years, starting in 2025. In addition, depending on the number of seats won in the National Assembly, the party receives another state grant (about 34 million euros): each member of the National Assembly and a senator receives an annual subsidy of more than 37,000 euros for his party.

The far-right's first round of legislative elections got off to a good start in 12 years. In addition, this is the first time that the National Alliance has won a seat in the first round. In 2022, only five candidates from each political party won in the first round, compared to four in 2017.

All of these records show a historic turning point for far-right parties: they have not been able to break through the "invisible ceiling" of politics in previous elections. But they tore a hole in the European Parliament elections three weeks ago, and now that restriction seems to have collapsed.

"I want to be a co-prime minister who respects the constitution and the functions of the President of the Republic, but we will not compromise on the implementation of policies that are beneficial to France," said Bardera that night. ”

If the National Alliance wins an absolute majority in the National Assembly after the second round of voting, the far-right leader is likely to take the cabinet. He once again stressed his desire to be "Prime Minister of all French people".

The party's spiritual leader, Marine Le Pen, called on voters to give her party an absolute majority in the second round of voting in order to make "Valdra prime minister".

Le Pen believes that after the first round of voting, the ruling party camp has been almost "completely strangled", and declared herself the winner of the first round in the constituency of the Pas-de-Calais and re-elected to the National Assembly.

Speaking at a campaign rally in the city of Hénin-Beaumont, Le Pen said that in an "unequivocal" vote, the French people expressed "the desire to turn a new page".

According to preliminary estimates, the traditional-right Republican Party received nearly 10 percent of the vote in the first round. The party's representative declared that "Macronism is dead" that night and called on voters to support the party's candidate to advance to the next round, but did not explicitly instruct his supporters on how to take sides in other situations.

As of the evening of the 30th, Macron has not yet expressed his attitude on how to choose between the situation of the showdown between the National Alliance and the New Popular Front. Over the years, the "Republican Front" advocated by the ruling party to counter the far right has been rifted.

Some of the core figures in Macron's camp seem to be inclined to "support neither the National Alliance nor the indomitable French party". This position has not only been attacked by the left, but has also sparked criticism within it. The final attitude of the ruling party towards the left-wing candidate is not yet clear.

Several party leaders of the Syriza reiterated their call for the left-wing candidate to withdraw from the race if another candidate is more likely to prevent the National Alliance from entering parliament. The leader of the Indomitable French Party, Mélenchon, also broke the ambiguity and made it clear that if his candidate finished third in the constituency and the National Alliance was in the lead, they would abandon the election in that district.

Raphael Glucksman, a member of the French European Parliament, has called on all third-placed candidates to withdraw from the race in the face of their rivals in the National Alliance. "We have seven days to avoid a catastrophe for France," he said. ”

(Editor: Dong Yu)